You are incessantly demanding and petulant. You say that
other people aren't doing enough, that progress is too slow
and the technology cost too much.
You come across like a two year old who doesn't
understand that life is unfair and that manufacturers like
Apple are not responsible for your condition. Worse, you
imply that these people are rebellious slaves who are not
serving you properly. Why then, should they want to help
you, given your demands and thanklessness?
Oh Yes, I forgot, you don't need their desire to help, when
you have the government to force them to do your bidding.
Your attitude sucks.
Travis Fugate
My friend Travis Fugate, a former member of the Kentucky National Guard, was hit in the face by an improvised explosive device in 2005, just south of Baghdad. He had some vision remaining after the injury, but because of complications in the following years, he lost all his sight.
As someone who had never considered accessibility, Travis was appalled by how difficult it was to complete basic tasks, such as finding contacts on his cell phone. Today, he lives through his iPhone. He uses the oMoby app to identify products, ooTunes for radio streaming, Navigon for finding his way and Tweetero to keep up with friends and family.
I wanted to learn more about accessibility, so yesterday I talked to Paul Schroeder, vice president of programs and policy at the American Foundation for the Blind. He is also the senior contributing editor for AccessWorld: Technology for Consumers with Visual Impairments, published by AFB Press.
Paul Schroeder
How many people in the United States are blind or vision impaired?
The statistics aren’t that good. There are over 25 million with vision loss in the U.S. A lot of them aren’t using assistive technology because they can see enough with glasses. I’d guess 20 to 30 percent of that group would need assistive technology.
From what I understand, there are two basic kinds of assistive, or adaptive technology—magnification and audio.
Yes, the two basics are magnification–either a device that’s desktop or handheld, or software that’s built into a product; and audio—mostly software built into a product. The third and smallest category is Braille. There’s a piece of hardware that hooks up to a computer, and using software, any line that’s highlighted on the display will be put on the Braille display.
There has been so much advancement lately in this technology. How dramatically does access affect the lives of the blind and visually impaired—socially and professionally?
Tremendously. The changes in technology, both the access to technology and also the increased use of computers and information made available via the web, has been unbelievably dramatic—from employment to the ability to get basic information–in a way we couldn’t imagine even 20 years ago.
So this has really helped promote independence.
It certainly has. We did a recent survey of 500 individuals with vision loss. We expected to find lower levels of computer use than we did. Usage was well into the 70 percent level, which was higher than cell phone usage. People have made the decision that they can’t survive without access to the computer. It’s true for sighted people but even more for blind people. It’s our link to the daily paper, TV programming and information on just about anything.
Talk about Apple’s role in leading the industry in this area, with the iPhone and iPad.
Apple really has changed the world in a dramatic way. I don’t know that any of us, even four or five years ago, would have guessed it would have been such a dramatic change. They built the screen reader technology into their operating system. For the Windows environment, there are third-party screen readers that are usually expensive. But Apple put VoiceOver right into the Mac.
Then when the iPhone came out, a lot of us were really frustrated, because there was a touch screen, but it was impossible for us to use. We put a lot of pressure on AT&T (Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act requires manufacturers and providers of phones to be accessible) and Apple to make the iPhone accessible. They promised it would be, and in a year or two, it was. They not only took VoiceOver and moved it over to iPhone, but they changed they way you use the touch screen so it was accessible for someone who can’t see it.
They have changed the world and shown a path that really has surprised and delighted the vision loss community. You can’t go anywhere without seeing iPhones in the hands of blind people. It’s become the phone of choice.
What is being done to ensure that websites are accessible?
That’s the other area of great development. The World Wide Web Consortium developed this Web Accessibility Initiative. It’s a great voluntary effort with leading companies—the Microsofts and IBMs and disability advocacy organizations—to shape web design so it is accessible.
For instance, a lot of people like to use images as their clickable links. But a screen reader can’t interpret what an image is. A blind person has no idea what that image might be. So one of the classic [ways to make it accessible] is to have alt text, which is there for screen reader users who want to know what that link is.
The good news is that the initiative is voluntary and involves many of the industry leaders doing work on the web. The bad news is there’s no policing. It’s important for web designers to understand making a website accessible for someone who can’t see doesn’t mean it can’t be visually pleasing for someone who can.
Are there efforts to supply developers with standards and the tools to meet them?
The initiative itself offers lots of tools and descriptions on how to do things. There’s also a requirement for federal government agencies to procure technology that’s accessible for people with disabilities, and a lot of focus on that work has been on websites.
You mentioned the expense of some of this technology.
We have this huge cost problem. It’s often $800 to $1,200 for a screen reader or magnification system–more than the computer you’re running it on. The software isn’t perfect, because developers tend to do things in their software that are difficult to make accessible, like using pictures that can’t be interpreted by the screen reader. So you’ve got this immense cost, and you’ve got software that doesn’t get 100 percent of the access you need. We like to say it’s a disability tax; it’s an expense that disabled people have to pay to gain access. Computer and websites are too important to leave people out just because they have disabilities.
What’s next?
I hope the Apple development and to some extent the new Droid development will bring some more built-in software. We have to encourage more built-in accessibility, especially on computers that we can’t customize with our own software–like a kiosk you might encounter at the airport or train station. Or television boxes—we have no access to the program guide or the digital recorder function. We don’t even know what show is on the channel we’re on.
The question is, how do we encourage more adaptive development in the mobile space? Mobile technologies are becoming the tools of the trade. For the first time ever, people have access to some Blackberry devices with a text-to-speech voice add-on called the Oratio [a collaboration between RIM, HumanWare, and Code Factory]. It’s a $400+ product, which is more than a Blackberry—that’s the disability tax I talked about. And it’s only compatible with one model for now. Elsewhere in the mobile world it’s just as bad or worse.
So the survey we took, that found more people using computers at cell phones—it makes sense. The computer environment has had more accessibility for longer. They’ve been working on it for 20, 25 years. There hasn’t been as much development in the cell phone area, even though there are legal requirements for it.
Top image: Travis Fugate
Bottom image: American Foundation for the Blind
